


Enough

by runrarebit



Category: Transformers - All Media Types, Transformers: Prime
Genre: Angst, Domestic Violence, Gender Roles, Introspection, M/M, Mechpreg, Melodrama, Miscarriage, Movie Spoilers, Mpreg, ambiguous character survival, angst is like porn for me, writer has been reading too much Jane Austen and it's affecting the way she writes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-11-22
Updated: 2013-11-22
Packaged: 2018-01-02 08:29:39
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,633
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1054654
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/runrarebit/pseuds/runrarebit
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Set after the movie. As a mortally wounded Starscream staggers towards the Sea of Rust, where he intends to die, he reflects on his past and what has brought him to his current state.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Enough

**Author's Note:**

> I haven't written fanfic in a very long time. Somehow this is the product of being sick for a week and spending it reading too much Jane Austen, a whole lot of Megatron/Starscream fics, mechpreg and mpreg fics, and possibly a few arranged marriage fics. So, yeah. In other news I have no idea what I'm doing.

He had lost track of time since coming back online at the base of Darkmount. What little he could put together of his scrambled memories suggested that after the beasts had satisfied themselves in savaging him they had thrown him from the throne room. Unfortunately his spark had not extinguished from the trauma.

Somehow he had managed to pull himself upright, wings crushed and barely attached. He could barely see where he was going, one optic destroyed and the other shorting out intermittently leaving him to stumble through static. His processor felt foggy, and his awareness of his surroundings was vague even when he could see where he was going, but he lurched on with as much determination as he could muster.

This was it. He’d had enough.

The beating had badly damaged his internal sensors. A relief really, he couldn’t bear to have what he knew to be true confirmed. 

He was leaking Energon, he could feel it running down the remains of his face, down his torso, his remaining arm and his legs. He had no way of knowing how much he’d lost or how much he had left, it couldn’t be much though. It took almost double the fuel to gestate a sparkling and he always seemed to be running on empty.

It may be futile, but he hoped to make it well out into the Sea of Rust before he bled out and offlined permanently. He was not sure why it seemed so fitting, but he had not wanted it to happen at the base of Darkmount. It felt disrespectful.

As he tripped over something he could not see and barely managed to keep his footing with one pede missing his toecap and the other leg fused at the knee he wondered if he would remain online long enough to feel his frame expel the tiny, half-formed protoform under construction in his gestation chamber. He could not feel it anymore, thanks to the damage to his sensors, but he was sure it must have been crushed. If he raised his remaining claws to his abdominal plating the damage was all too obvious.

He had no hope for the tiny spark nestled in his own spark chamber. Lesser beatings than this one had extinguished what should have been its brothers and sisters.

There were no words for the shame he felt that many of those beatings had come from the sparklings’ own sire. Though he had always known it was not unusual. Growing up on Vos it was never talked of but it was nonetheless understood; it was the carrier’s fault for not attending properly to the sire’s needs.

The damage to his face meant he could not even weep as he struggled forward, a moment of visual clarity letting him know he had made it to the edge of his tomb. The Sea of Rust stretched out before him, empty of everything, even the ancient bones of the predecessors of those who had finally killed him. 

For a nanoclick he wished Shockwave was here. It was strange to think that after all those vorns of hatred he had grown almost fond of the other mech in the lead up to his demise. He was sure there was no way Shockwave had survived the Terrorcon attack. Perhaps he should have done more to save the other, but he had been frightened for the sparkling and, in truth, he knew he’d lost his nerve long ago. 

He never had been all that brave. 

Prince of Vos. What a ludicrous title. He’d been small and awkward and generally considered unforgivably ugly. Not even title and carrier status had been enough to net him a happy bondmate.

Attempts had been made by his sire to gain him a betrothal. He’d been chaperoned on a variety of outings with a variety of handsome and unfailingly polite mechs, but nothing had ever come of it. He found their conversation boring, though he had done his best to appear interested and attentive, and none had understood him when he attempted to talk about his interests. Or, worse yet, they had dismissed them as the silly preoccupations of a carrier.

The greatest insult had come when he’d overheard the latest suitor (whose name he was not going to acknowledge even in the privacy of his own processor) complaining to a littermate about his hideous, spindly little legs; long, unattractive face; and dreadful personality. This was right before said suitor was supposed to take him out, with said littermate (a bonded carrier) as the chaperone. After that he’d made no more attempts at being nice, to the increasing sulkiness of the suitor, but soon it hadn’t really mattered. They’d gone to the arena. He’d seen Megatronus. He’d been lost.

It had almost been funny that Megatron had been the one to come courting him. Not quite in the way he would have wished, or the way he thought at first, but because of his title. 

He’d been infatuated. Foolishly infatuated. 

Megatron was big, Megatron was handsome by any definition, well balanced and robust, Megatron was also passionate and willing to listen to him. No one had ever really been willing to listen to him before. Megatron treated him well, like he was a sire, and spoke of equality without knowing what it could mean for a Seeker carrier. Equality. It had been a bewitching idea. 

At the time it had been against the law for a Seeker to initiate any who was not a Seeker into the secrets of Seeker reproduction, perhaps if he’d ignored that law things would have turned out differently.

Something in his left ankle made a distressing screech and then a clang. He lurched forward, limbs flailing before somehow regaining some semblance of balance. The next step he took informed him that his pede had fallen off. For a nanoclick he wanted to just stop where he was, to let this be his grave, but the Sea of Rust stretched out ahead of his staticy optic, seeming to call to him. He limped unevenly onwards. 

He really had though Megatron had wanted to bond with him at first. Megatron may have been rough and coarse and far beneath him in status, but that had just made it all the more thrilling. His sire’s disapproval, his carrier’s sorrow, nothing could stop him from wanting to spend every nanoclick in the other’s company.

It had seemed that Megatron was properly courting him too. They’d gone out, at first chaperoned but later sneaking off together. They’d talked. Megatron had bought him things and complimented him and read what he suggested so they could talk about it the next time. He’d felt delicate and treasured and happy in the way only felt by a carrier who had made what they thought to be a love match.

The war was in its infancy at this point, and around it Cybertron had been whole and imperfect and oh, so unfair for so many and he was being courted by a revolutionary. In his processor they were going to rule side by side, as equals, and he would carry many sparklings and his bondmate would never, ever beat him and tell him it was his fault.

He let himself, no, he chose a path that was more than being a simple figurehead for the Seekers that agreed with him. He chose to fight, and in doing so found he was good at it. He was ruthless and capable of cruelty and nothing like the meek little Prince waiting to be bonded to a big, bad sire. Nothing like any carrier was supposed to be capable of. 

He spilled Energon with his own claws and did not weep. He had told himself he was doing the right thing. It was for freedom and equality and the bright future he saw with Megatron.

He had let, no, again he had CHOSEN to profane himself on Megatron’s spike. 

The only defence he could give himself was he thought they were betrothed. Such arrangements were never spoken of outright amongst Seekers, it was impolite, the courting and agreement reached solely through body language and carefully encoded, ritualistic conversation. Megatron had responded in all the right ways, even to his sire- who had come around to the idea of his sparkling sitting beside the throne once the Decepticons had started winning. So he had thought they were betrothed, or he would never have allowed Megatron to pop his seal.

There’d been a little too much high-grade involved, and a lot of very close contact and affectionate petting before he found himself underneath the other mech’s heavy bulk and more than a little confused as to what was happening. It wasn’t considered proper for a carrier to know about such things before bonding. He had been stupidly naïve.

It had been enjoyable though, and he’d been more than eager the next time and the time after. 

The war had started going sour around that time, sparks were being snuffed out left and right, and not even the glorious beauty of Vos could save it from destruction. Megatron’s temper had started to get worse, just around the time he’d first found himself carrying. It had been alright though. He had still been confident that they would win and his delusion of ruling side by side with his bondmate had yet to fail him. 

He had been getting concerned that Megatron seemed to have no intention of bonding before the sparkling came, this, of course was before he realised that Megatron had no idea he was even a carrier or that such things existed. He had, at the time, assumed that Megatron could read his body language as that of a carrying Seeker and would not have to be told outright, the thought too vulgar to bear.

Everything had come crashing down though. He’d made some stupid, little mistake and Megatron had lost his temper and taken it all out on him. In the beating he had lost the sparkling without its sire ever knowing of its existence. 

That had broken him. He’d never recovered, never been able to trust Megatron again or the lies he’d told about equality. He had never again felt safe.

It had felt like everyone must have known, seen it on him. They could all see he was a failure as a future bondmate, a failure as a carrier, he was just stupid, awkward, ugly Starscream.

He had avoided his betrothed until he’d felt he could face him without screaming in his face. Megatron had been apologetic and conciliatory and kind, for the beating, not the loss he didn’t know about, but it hadn’t been the same. It had taken a while for him to enjoy interfacing again, but eventually he’d hoped to spark again and that this time there’d be more success. Maybe Megatron would even finally bond with him.

Of course the other mech took none of his nonverbal hints, or even understood any of his careful questioning. It began to occur to him that maybe Megatron never had any intention of bonding with him at all, and had just used him. It was worse than that though, a moment’s unguarded outrage and he’d discovered that Megatron had no idea they were even betrothed. Probably still had no idea, because even then he hadn’t been able to bring himself to say it outright, just hinted at it enough to annoy Megatron and earn him another beating.

His remaining optic went completely black. He stumbled forward a few more steps before tripping and landing hard, face down in the Sea of Rust. Blind and exhausted he made an attempt to get up, but couldn’t manage it. He vented heavily in the knowledge that this was it, this was where his spark would extinguish. 

He’d been disgusted with himself when he realised what he’d done, what he’d thrown away for nothing. Of course, dramatic irony insisted he would be carrying once more when he discovered his own foolishness. It hadn’t lasted long though; he’d been a little too reckless, a little too hands-on in an inevitable fight with the autobots, and another of his sparklings had been extinguished before its protoform had even started being constructed.

He’d grieved, vowed revenge, taken comfort in the arms of the sparkling’s oblivious sire and eventually sparked again. This time he tried to tell Megatron exactly what was happening, but the war required too much of the other’s attention and he would not listen. 

He’d been ill, it was always dangerous carrying again too soon after losing a sparkling. It had been hard to concentrate. He kept making mistakes. He had been terrified, completely terrified that he would lose another sparkling. Eventually he’d failed the mech he was now calling master instead of Megatron one too many times and the sire had extinguished another tiny spark.

That had been too much. He’d become a wreck. Hostile to any of Megatron’s attentions, which hadn’t seemed to faze the other, and who he had soon learned had been interfacing others the whole time. His pride, any and all of his dignity had been wounded, injured beyond bearing. At the time he had felt no choice but to begin plotting to depose, to outright destroy the one who he once believed the key to his happiness and the future of their world.

That was the end of the good times between them, and soon he was sure Megatron had come to hate him just as much as he hated the other mech for unknowingly destroying their sparklings.

So they’d limped on through the vorns. Fighting and ‘facing, him getting sparked every now and then, making no futile attempt to inform the sire, and doing his best not to grieve when each tiny spark was extinguished inside of him either by its sire or the enemy. It was not to be, he had accepted that. 

He was never to be happy.

He knew he had become a wretched thing, fear and loss and pain turning him weak and crawling. Begging and duplicitous. Doing anything to survive, because that’s all he could think to live for, the day it was all finally over. In truth he didn’t even really care if they won or lost. He just wanted an end to it all.

He longed for Cybertron when it was destroyed. He longed for the life he once thought he’d lead, bonded to some handsome, stupid sire who could tolerate him, with a whole brood of sparklings flying at his heels.

He had occasionally considered letting another mech interface with him. Part of him had wondered if it was only Megatron’s sparklings he could not carry to term.

Soundwave was very handsome, but terrifying and far too loyal to Megatron. He had hated Shockwave on sight, especially as he knew that for a time Megatron and the other mech had been interfacing like Earth weasels, and Megatron thought Shockwave considerably smarter than him. That had stung, even when he had been nothing more than ugly, awkward Starscream he had been smarter than most other mechs he had ever encountered.

Breakdown had been large, rough and seemed more than capable of holding him down and giving it to him like he liked, and Knock Out was irritatingly good looking, and occasionally irritatingly good company, but he couldn’t do it. He still felt betrothed to Megatron and he wasn’t that kind of carrier. 

Even worse was when one of the command, or even an Eradicon or Vehicon, got overcharged and complimented him, told him he was pretty and they wanted to ‘face him, he couldn’t believe them. He knew what he was and what he looked like and maybe he’d made the most of it, maybe he had grown to enjoy shoving his spindly legs and ugly face in everyone’s optics so they couldn’t avoid looking at him, but he would not be made fun of. He would not be mocked. 

He’d retaliated, unable to bear the injury to his tattered dignity, and soon enough they’d stopped coming on to him. The price they paid was too high for the small amount of amusement they gained by pretending any of them could want him. 

Sometimes he missed the mockery though, the capacity to pretend he was in any way wanted.

Megatron still used him, every now and then, whether they were fighting or friendly, and at times whether or not he wanted it. Another indignity to suffer along with the rest. 

He had been happy when he extinguished Cliffjumper’s spark. It had seemed like a sweet little vengeance for the times it had been Autobot fists and fire that had snuffed out another sparkling.

For a long time that one moment had been the only real joy Earth had given him, but then he’d sparked again when Megatron ‘faced him in the wreckage of the Autobot base. Not the first time on Earth, but this time, somehow, he’d made it past those first, precious orns when the sparkling was so very vulnerable without being struck in either spark or gestation chamber.

He’d had wings and wrists and ankles injured, he’d been struck on the head, and thrown around by that filthy beast, ‘faced roughly by Megatron, and yet no blow landed where it would do the most damage. The sparkling kept growing, feeding off his spark energy, each orn stabilising and strengthening it. The fight, the rebellion had completely gone out of him as the stupid, foolish hope began to rise within him that this time, somehow this time, he would manage it. He would carry the sparkling to term. He would do his duty as carrier and forsaken bondmate.

Things were going almost going right. Even though he was half mad with fear for the sparkling and terrified what Megatron’s favouritism of Shockwave might mean for it if he did manage to birth it, somehow he didn’t screw up bad enough, or maybe Megatron was just tired of hurting him beyond his breaking point.

They would have Earth and a rejuvenated Cybertron. His sparkling would be born on their homeworld.

He no longer deluded himself that he would sit side by side with Megatron, King and carrier, but maybe there could be safety. Maybe there could be a place for him and his young.

Then Megatron died. He witnessed his spark being extinguished and with it all his hopes. He had wept and railed and screamed, held in Shockwave’s arms as they fled in the escape pod. He had realised then, as it felt as though his own spark was being ripped from his chest, that he still loved Megatron. He would always love Megatron. No matter how the other had treated him. No matter the cruelties and indignities he had suffered at the other’s claws. He was truly a fool.

He could not help being grateful to Shockwave. Fond even of Shockwave. Even now he felt sorrow at the thought of the other lying sparkless somewhere else in this great waste. 

Shockwave was a scientist. Shockwave was clever, logical and observant. Shockwave, it turned out, had also heard some interesting rumours about Seekers. In short, Shockwave had worked out he was carrying and behaved accordingly.

He was given the best Energon they recovered, the best berth in the laboratory, and time to recharge as much as he needed between missions to retrieve Predacon bones. Sometimes he was distraught, and Shockwave would hold him and pet him in the other mech’s logical way. Shockwave reassured him. They would build an army; they would conquer the newly revitalised Cybertron so that one day Megatron’s sparkling would rule it all. Once his frame began to construct the protoform in preparation to house the sparkling Shockwave even took the time to enrich his Energon with the requisite elements so that his frame did not cannibalise its own components to construct the tiny form.

He couldn’t think about the rest. He didn’t want his spark to extinguish as he lay blind and bleeding out in the Sea of Rust contemplating the death of his protector, the complete and irrevocable rejection of the mech he had once dreamed of being bonded with, and the extinguishment of the one and only sparkling that mech had sired on him which had survived long enough for his frame to begin constructing its protoform. 

Everything felt cold, though he knew he was probably overheating. He could faintly smell the stink of too hot metal and spilled coolant. His vents were coming shallow and harsh, sounding gritty and tortured. This was it, he knew it. He could lie there and wait, conscious until his processor failed him, or voluntarily place himself into recharge so he offlined in comforting oblivion. The latter was tempting, but he felt he deserved to see it coming.

He was an utter failure. This was his fault. All of it. 

Better to have died amongst the wreckage of Vos. Better to have offlined a virginal Prince and not a failed carrier. Not the unwanted bondmate of an undeniable monster. They were both guilty of so much destruction and spilled Energon.

Each vent was coming harder as his systems began to shut down. He was glad once more that his internal sensors were damaged so he didn’t have to offline in the knowledge of how badly he was damaged, how badly the precious life he had carried within him had been damaged. 

Everything was getting heavier, he could barely move, it was coming for him and he briefly wondered where he would be going, if he would join the allspark or if his sins meant he was destined for somewhere darker.

‘Starscream?’

‘Starscream?!’

He vented, faintly, a whisper of sound ‘Shockwave.’


End file.
